LUNAR EXPLORATION BEGINS

Interlude:

The samples returned by Apollo 11 were just becoming available to
experimenters when Apollo 12 was launched, and while those scientists
eagerly awaited them, many in the scientific community expressed
discontent with NASA's management of the lunar exploration program. Some
of their dissatisfaction stemmed from specific actions of the manned
space flight organization and the scientists' perception of their
significance, some of it from disagreement with the priorities of the
program. Much of it, however, seems to have had a much more elusive
origin.

Scientists had for years bewailed the priority given to test pilots in
selecting crews for lunar exploration. Their distress was temporarily
alleviated by the selection of two groups of scientists for training as
astronauts, but flight assignments remained a sore point. Those
scientists most closely associated with planning the missions understood
that the capability to land on the moon and return had to be developed
first and accepted MSC's contention that test pilots were best suited by
experience to deal with the uncertainties of developmental flights. Even
they, however, expected that scientists would be assigned to missions
very soon after the first successful lunar landing.

Crews for the first two landing missions had been named in January and
April of 1969 without producing an outcry from the scientists. Early in
August, however, the announcement of selection of the next two crews for
lunar exploration did provoke a response. The Apollo 13 crew included
James A. Lovell, Jr., commander, Fred W. Haise, Jr., lunar module pilot,
and Thomas Mattingly II, command module pilot. Their backups were John
W. Young, John L. Swigert, Jr., and Charles M. Duke. For Apollo 14, Alan
B. Shepard, Jr., was named commander, Edgar D. Mitchell, lunar module
pilot, and Stuart A. Roosa, command module pilot, backed up by Eugene A.
Cernan, Ronald E. Evans, and Joe H. Engle.50 Not one of the 13 scientist-astronauts was
included.* Worse yet from the
scientists' point of view, seniority - which hitherto had seemed to be
one of Deke Slayton's primary criteria for crew appointments - appeared
to count for nothing when the first class of scientist-astronauts
acquired it: of the 12 crewmen named, only Lovell, Young, Shepard, and
Cernan had been in the program longer than they.**

This alone might not have been cause for alarm on the part of scientists
had it not been followed shortly by the resignation of several men
occupying positions of some prominence in NASA's science program. At
Headquarters, Dr. Donald U. Wise, Lee Scherer's deputy in the Lunar
Exploration Office, left to take an academic appointment. Dr. Elbert A.
King, Jr., a prime mover in establishing the lunar receiving laboratory
at Houston and first curator of lunar samples, announced he would resign
to become head of the geology department at the University of Houston.
The astronaut corps lost one of its scientist members when F. Curtis
Michel resigned to return to teaching and research at Rice University.
Finally, Wilmot Hess, first director of Science and Applications at MSC,
left to become director of research at the Environmental Science
Services Administration laboratories at Boulder, Colorado.

Each man had his own reasons for leaving NASA, and their
near-simultaneous departure seems to have been only coincidental. (King,
for example, had made a commitment to the University of Houston more
than a year earlier.51) Still, all but
Hess - who declined to discuss his resignation with the press -
expressed some dissatisfaction with the status of science in manned
space flight programs. Michel's main reason was to return to research,
but he stated his disappointment that NASA had shown "no serious
intent to fly scientist-astronauts." King likewise professed a
desire to spend more time in research, which he found very difficult to
do in an administrative position, and warned that NASA had not yet
convinced the scientific community that it "will put together a
program that will truly emphasize science." Wise discussed his
choice somewhat reluctantly, expressing concern that criticism from the
scientific community would intensify science's problems: "With
enough screams [from scientists]," he feared "we will fly only
five missions instead of ten - this would be the real tragedy." He
too pointed out (among other problems) "a lack of understanding of
scientific goals at the management level in NASA."52

Hess's resignation was perhaps the most serious of all in the eyes of
outside scientists, because he had been brought to MSC specifically to
give the Houston center some scientific respectability. [see Chapter 6] He had, however, found little
support from center management and no understanding of the proper role
of science. His plans to establish a credible research program at MSC,
which included a substantial increase in the number of research
scientists, had been thwarted by agency - wide cuts in civil-service
positions - the result of budget cuts which had not been anticipated
when he came to Houston. Apparently seeing little hope of improvement,
he had opted for a more promising environment.53

Yet one more scientist was to separate himself from Apollo. Eugene
Shoemaker, who from the very early days had been a vigorous advocate of
science on Apollo [see Chapter 2], had
actively participated not only in program planning but also in
developing geologic methods for the astronauts to use on the moon. Now
he excoriated the program. Speaking to a Pasadena luncheon group in
early October, he expressed his strong opposition to the post-Apollo
plans recently presented by the President's Space Task Force -
specifically the proposal to send humans to Mars. The only justification
of that mission, he said, was "to build big, new systems in
space." Apollo was that kind of system, built "primarily for
the sake of building a big system," and it had turned out to be
hopelessly inadequate for scientific purposes. The spacecraft and the
mission mode were designed to engineering and operational requirements,
and the system was all but useless for any other purpose. As a result,
now that it was possible to send humans to the moon, the system could be
used for practically nothing else, because the engineers had not
considered any purpose for Apollo except to demonstrate that people
could go to the moon and return safely. Everything the Apollo 11
astronauts had done, Shoemaker said, including sample collection, could
have been done sooner and more cheaply by unmanned spacecraft. It was
time to redesign the spacecraft and the space suits, provide surface
mobility, and adapt the missions to the tactics of field geology - the
only activity that would make the most of humans' inherent superiority
to machines.54

Shoemaker's criticisms were not entirely without merit, although it was
far too late to make the changes he called for, and they were reported
in a local paper and then widely circulated by the wire services.55 Still, it was easy to discount them as the
complaints of a discontented participant whose ideas had not been
allowed to determine the course of the program. Over the years,
Shoemaker's early influence on Apollo science had been gradually
preempted by laboratory-oriented scientists (geochemists, geophysicists,
petrologists, mineralogists) many of whom would scarcely classify field
geology (Shoemaker's own specialty) as a science at all.56

Defections by these highly visible scientists in the space agency were -
as no doubt some of them had intended - critically noticed by science's
advocates in the press. A New York Times editorial quoted
Elbert King's contention that "there's not enough sympathy with, or
understanding of, scientific objectives at the higher levels of
NASA." The Times editorialist noted that
"everything man has learned in this last eventful month about both
the moon and Mars makes it plain that scientific objectives must enjoy
much higher priorities in NASA's future efforts."57The Washington Post went further,
asserting that Hess's resignation was likely to signal the scientific
community that the goal of Apollo was simply "to improve on the
techniques of space flight instead of setting the mission of each flight
primarily to maximize the yield of basic scientific data. . . . It makes
only a little sense to go back to the moon again and again simply to
improve our method of getting there. . . . The scientists of space . . .
have been forced into the back seat of the manned space program. It is
time now to make them the navigators. The choice of missions ... should
be largely in their hands."58

Whether these editorials reflected a bias in favor of the intellectual
elegance of pure science or merely gross ignorance, they overlooked some
basic facts about Apollo's limited capabilities. Maximizing the yield of
scientific data required improving the techniques of manned space
flight. Apollo 11 overshot its aiming point by five miles (eight
kilometers), and even the Washington Post would likely have
agreed that it made no sense to commit scientific missions if they could
not reach their targets. Nonetheless, progress toward scientific
exploration was too slow to suit some critics, and they evidently felt
that their only recourse was to take their case to the public.

The more subjective concerns of scientists were equally important but
considerably less easy to understand and more difficult still to
implement. King's charge that NASA management did not sufficiently
understand or sympathize with scientific objectives (whatever that
meant) was seconded by others. Fred L. Whipple, one of the country's
foremost astronomers and a member of George Mueller's Science and
Technology Advisory Committee, put it to Mueller in early August 1969 in
a letter calling attention to the lamentable situation at Houston.
"I have yet to talk to a scientist connected with the Apollo
project," he wrote, "who feels that he is really welcome there
by the engineers. The atmosphere . . . is not hostile but it certainly
is negative." In 26 years of working with engineers, Whipple said,
he had often had disagreements but had "never encountered the
negative type of attitude that persists at the MSC." He had
personally heard an astronaut say, in effect, that if only they could
put all the scientists in a cage, then the engineers and astronauts
could get on with the program. Clearly this was not a milieu in which a
scientist could work effectively.59

Later in the year, but in response to the same events, Alex J. Dessler,
head of the Space Physics and Astronomy department at Rice University,
commented on the discontent of the space scientists. In spite of the
fact that American space science was recognized as the most productive
in the world, and space science was relatively better supported than
many other fields of science, the discontent of space scientists was
widespread and growing more intense. Dessler noted that their attitude,
though in some sense incongruous, was important, because Congress was
sure to listen if a number of prominent space scientists began to
condemn the Apollo program. Scientists evidently felt that they had no
effective advocate at a high level in NASA - in contrast to the
engineers, who were quite well represented by George Mueller at the head
of a program office. Even when the scientists got what they wanted,
Dessler said, they felt frustrated at "the appearance of
condescension on the part of the engineers . . . the scientists
sometimes feel they are being thrown a bone to shut them up."60

Both Whipple and Dessler suggested similar solutions to the problem.
Whipple thought that much of the misunderstanding arose from NASA's
desire to justify Apollo on scientific grounds, something he believed
could not be done. Manned space flight, which he supported, had its own
reasons for being, but they were not necessarily scientific. He
suggested that the only way MSC could gain the support of scientists was
to put a scientist of high repute, acceptable to both outside critics
and the engineers and astronauts with whom he worked, in a position
"in which [he] has a major role in all of the decisions made with
regard to the operation of the Center." Dessler saw a need for a
similar scientific heavyweight at Headquarters; scientists had had no
such advocate since Hugh Dryden.***
For the manned space flight program to be acceptable to the scientific
community, apparently, scientists had to be in undisputed command.

This attitude was not new; even in the unmanned space science program,
scientists contended for influence in shaping NASA's programs and felt
they did not have enough. Homer Newell, as associate administrator for
the Office of Space Science and Applications from 1963 to 1967, had
dealt with them time and again. In retrospect he wrote, "Scientists
are a contentious lot, . . . and the tremendous opportunities of the
space program inspired them to more intense dispute than usual."
Much of the tension in the space program, Newell said, "stemmed
from the scientists' presumption of special privilege, which at times
Congress found irritating."61 That
presumption, sometimes verging on arrogance, was unmistakable in the
complaints aired during the summer of 1969, and, like Congress, Apollo's
engineers could hardly help finding it imitating. By their own lights,
the engineers were doing their best to facilitate scientific exploration
of the moon within the limitations of a very complex technology that
offered many chances for catastrophic failure. They were reluctant to
take extreme risks - as by landing at a site for which they had
inadequate data simply because it looked more interesting to the
scientists.

The general malaise of the times may also have contributed to this
somewhat vague but strongly felt sense of impotence on the part of
scientists. For the first time in some years the value of pure research,
long extolled by spokesmen for science, was in question. The college
generation of young Americans, including many science students, grew
concerned for the earth's environment. They often indiscriminately
attributed its deterioration to both inhumane science and mindless
technology. They also disparaged the academics' devotion to research -
most particularly research subsidized by the military - as the major
function of the university, demanding more attention to teaching. A
small group of radical students forcibly brought these concerns to the
attention of scientists late in 1969 at the national meeting of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston. The
normally sedate proceedings were disrupted by hecklers, organized
demonstrations, and rump sessions, to the considerable distress of the
Scientific community.62

Whatever the origins of the space scientists' unhappiness, their public
clamor for more science on Apollo did not go unheeded. George Mueller
wrote to MSC Director Robert Gilruth in early September 1969, urging him
to give this problem his personal attention. After listing the steps
already taken to support the science program within a steadily declining
personnel ceiling, Mueller cautioned that

we will certainly detract measurably from the success
of Apollo 11, and the missions yet to be flown, unless we meet the
challenge [of providing] the support required in the science
area.

Noting that "some members of the scientific community are impatient
and as you know, are willing to air their views without necessarily
relating those views to what is practicable and possible," he
stated that

it is our policy to do the maximum science possible in
each Apollo mission and to provide adequate science support. . . . we
must assure ourselves and the world of science that we are making those
adjustments which will provide steadily increasing and effective support
for the science area.63

It remained to be seen whether the impatient scientists would be
mollified by the "adjustments" Mueller promised.

* Mitchell held a Ph.D., but it was
in engineering (astronautics and aeronautics), not one of the Natural
sciences.

** However, three of the scientists
had spent a year learning to fly, and all five had begun their astronaut
training after the next class of pilots, which included all the rest of
the Apollo 13 and 14 crews, had been selected.

*** Hugh L. Dryden, director of the
National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) from 1947 to 1958,
achieved his reputation through basic research in aerodynamics conducted
at the National Bureau of Standards. His election to the National
Academy of Sciences in 1944 attested to his stature among his peers.
Although he was not active in research after taking over NACA, Dryden's
skills as a research administrator during difficult times earned
widespread respect in the agency. He was appointed deputy administrator
of NASA in 1958, remaining in that post until his death in 1965. Some
pioneer space scientists remember him with something approaching hero
worship.

50. Thomas O'Toole, "Veteran
Astronauts Lovell, Shepard to Lead '70 Moon Flights," , Aug. 7, 1969. A month earlier a Houston paper
had run an unconfirmed story that Shepard, Roosa, and Mitchell would be
the crew for Apollo 13, with Lovell, Mattingly, and Haise manning 14
(Arthur Hill, "Alan Shepard Will Command 3rd Moon Team,"
Houston Chronicle, July 3, 1969). This may have been the
cause for George Mueller's overriding Slayton's choice for these crews -
the only instance in which Headquarters reversed Slayton's selections [see note 13, Chap. 5]. Shepard
had been off the active list until May 1969, serving meanwhile as head
of the Astronaut Office ("Mercury's Shepard rejoins flight
group," MSC Roundup, May 16, 1969). The report that he
had been named to the first mission scheduled after he returned to
active status would have considerably upset the scientist astronauts. In
the course of an interview unrelated to this book, one of them commented
off the record to the present author, "the test pilots ran the
astronaut office and flew their friends." True or not, such a
perception would have been hard to refute after this crew selection.

56. Harold Urey, who during this period
continually criticized NASA's choice of lunar landing sites, wrote off
geologists as "mostly . . . a second-rate lot. . . . [Geology] is
descriptive, and very often [geologists] do not learn more than the most
elementary things about chemistry and physics." Urey to Mueller,
Oct. 7, 1969. Of Shoemaker, Urey said, "Gene is one of the few
capable people who has had a prominent part in advising NASA, though he
has had a very rigid geological point-of-view. . . . I do not agree with
him in some ways, but his general criticism of the lack of good
scientific advice is correct." Urey to Paine, Oct. 9, 1969. Urey
and Shoemaker had both worked on Project Ranger.

Shoemaker's criticism deeply affronted some in NASA, who felt it could
only do the program harm; see Homer E. Newell, Beyond the
Atmosphere: Early Days of Space Science, NASA SP-4211
(Washington, 1980), pp. 292-93. To this day Shoemaker insists that his
intent was grossly mis-understood: "What I was trying to do,"
he told the author, "was to get people to focus on something they
were losing on this thing, but I never got the point across." He
and a few others thought the point was, "let's make the astronaut
himself an instrument of scientific discovery," which could not be
done by slavishly following preplanned operations. "The sample
scientists didn't give a damn, frankly, whether the astronauts
discovered something or not; they were going to discover something with
the samples that came back, you see. * * * As far as I'm concerned, the
kinds of things you could discover, by human observer, under the
constraints of Apollo, . . . [have not] been touched. If you could get
me a spacecraft tomorrow, I've got the whole program . . . in my head, .
. . and it's still there [on the moon]. All you need to get me is a hand
lens and a shovel. . . . There's three and a half billion years of
history in three meters [10 feet] of dirt . . . on the lunar surface,
and . . . we haven't even touched it yet." Shoemaker interview,
Mar. 17, 1984. Since Shoemaker did not make this point central to his
public remarks, it is not surprising that his former colleagues in NASA
were affronted.

61. Newell, Beyond the
Atmosphere, pp. 213, 221-22. The fact was that no eminent
research scientist was willing to give up research for a career (or even
a year's tenure) as a research administrator; yet Whipple, Dessler, and
other scientists continued to urge NASA to find such a person to manage
the science programs. See Newell, chap. 12 ("Who Decides?"). A
similar problem arose in the life sciences program; see John A. Pitts,
The Human Factor: Biomedicine in the Manned Space Program to
1980, NASA SP-4213 (Washington, 1985), passim.